nation/world news in brief

Thursday

Nov 4, 2010 at 12:20 AM

NAIROBI, Kenya — Somalia’s government will work with the United Nations to release and rehabilitate child soldiers in its army, a U.N. envoy who tracks the recruitment of child soldiers said Wednesday.

The number of children in the Somali army is unclear, but a plan to be developed by the Somali government will help establish the extent of the problem, said Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. special representative for children in armed conflict.

Human rights groups and media outlets have been reporting about the existence of child soldiers in Somalia for years. One Somali human rights group has estimated that thousands of child soldiers are used by both the weak, U.N.-backed government and Islamist militias like al-Shabab that have been trying to overthrow it for the past three years.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is meeting with officials in New Zealand in a bid to fully restore ties that have been irritated by a lingering 25-year-long nuclear dispute.

Clinton arrived in the capital early today and was expected to sign with her counterpart the “Wellington Declaration,” a document that will lay out parameters of enhanced U.S.-New Zealand cooperation on counterterrorism, transnational crime and climate change. She will also announce a new strategic dialogue with the South Pacific nation.

Despite a long history of friendship, relations between the two countries have been hampered since 1985 when New Zealand began denying entry to U.S. warships because the Pentagon refused to declare if they were carrying nuclear weapons.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A judge has dismissed a federal lawsuit brought by a Pennsylvania soccer mom who symbolized the national gun-rights debate before she was killed in a murder-suicide.

Meleanie Hain’s license to carry a weapon was revoked in 2008 after parents complained she endangered the community by openly carrying a gun to her 5-year-old daughter’s soccer games.

A judge later reinstated the permit. But Hain and her husband sued Lebanon County Sheriff Michael DeLeo, claiming they suffered emotional distress and lost customers for her home baby-sitting service.

U.S. Middle District Judge Yvette Kane tossed the lawsuit Tuesday. It had been continued by Hain’s estate.

Hain’s husband, Scott, fatally shot her in October 2009 at their home before killing himself.

ACAPULCO, Mexico — Mexican police have recovered at least nine bodies in a mass grave identified in a narco-video as the burial site for 20 men kidnapped in the resort city of Acapulco.

The Guerrero state investigative police chief says at least six more bodies could be seen in the grave in Tres Palos, a town outside Acapulco.

Chief Fernando Monreal says police don’t yet know if the bodies belong to any of the 20 men who were kidnapped Sept. 30 while traveling together in Acapulco.

Police began digging at the site after a video appeared on YouTube in which two men say they killed the 20 men and buried them in the area. The two men were themselves found dead on top of the grave they mentioned in the video.

KENNEWICK, Wash. — A woman convicted of murdering a pregnant woman and cutting the baby from her womb has been sentenced to life in prison.